By Brian Bohl

Four months after receiving 751 votes in a landslide victory that saw a record turnout in the Student Government Association Presidential Election, the tandem of Peter F. DiSilvio and Simon Duncanson will not have the opportunity to serve together.Duncanson, the Vice-President under DiSilvio, was forced to resign his position in early August after family financial considerations precluded his return to the University, according to multiple high-ranking SGA officials. The unexpected departure forced the SGA to conduct a runoff election during the first Senate meeting last Tuesday, in which junior Russell Akiyama was elected by a majority vote. Duncanson, who would have been a junior, had served two years in the SGA, taking over as Academic Affairs Committee chairman last year after starting as a freshman senator in 2004. He did not respond to repeated phone calls and messages. DiSilvio started his student government career at the University with his former running mate during fall 2004. He said embarking on his presidency will be exceedingly difficult without his partner, who was well regarded by many of his peers.”Simon Duncanson commanded a lot of respect, because you knew you couldn’t get anything past him,” DiSilvio said. “A lot of vice presidents in the past, they didn’t know the rules. Simon didn’t have that problem. He was a state-registered parliamentarian. He could have been hired to [work] on Capitol Hill.”Duncanson, an Amityville native, informed DiSilvio about his resignation on the second day of August, according to the president. As a motivational sign, a cardboard picture of Duncanson from the spring campaign still hangs on the wall inside the SGA office. In his resignation letter obtained by The Chronicle, the former Residential Assistant wished his former colleagues well for the upcoming academic year. “I just want to send my regards to the Cabinet and Senate,” Duncanson said in his written statement. “I hope the year turns out just as amazing as the people you have working with you. I have no doubt that it will.”The goals established by the current administration will be more difficult to fulfill with the absence of a prominent member of the presidential ticket that won with a first-ballot plurality, said former campaign worker and current Academic Affairs Chairwoman Cristal Kayel.”We all have a little bit of him with us,” Kayel said. “We know the ideas he had and wanted to implement so we look to work together to accomplish the DiSilvio-Duncanson vision: a united non-partisan SGA for the best interest of all the students.”